Blink Twice
by Hope Madden
Zoë Kravitz is pissed off.
Nice.
In her directorial debut, Kravitz—working from a script she co-wrote with E.T. Feigenbaum—delivers an intoxicating and haunting thriller about privilege.
Naomi Ackie (Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody) is Frida, a waitress with a huge crush on disgraced-but-apologetic billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum). When he invites her and her best friend Jess (the always welcome Alia Shawkat) to his private island, both accept without a second thought.
It’s all rich guys and delicious food, pools and cocktails, drugs and sun. What Frida can’t quite figure out is why Slater never seems to make a move.
What transpires feels influenced by the classic The Stepford Wives, as well asJulia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty and Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling. The ideas are less borrowed than repeatedly, historically true and Kravitz reconsiders these timeless notions with an unerringly contemporary sensibility and a mean spirit that’s earned.
Ackie’s solid in a role that asks a lot. She’s surrounded by lively, creepy performances that perfectly animate the superficial, manufactured joy of the story being told. Adria Arjona impresses in a role with more arc than most. Meanwhile, both Christian Slater and Red Rocket’s Simon Rex steal scenes left and right.
Still, it’s Tatum who effortlessly bridges horror fantasy with “damn, this could really happen.” His morally blurry turn, charmingly evil, has such authenticity to it that the island horror feels more like a reflection of reality than it should.
Should you board an airplane for a tropical island with a bunch of wildly rich people you’ve never met before? Good lord, no. Nothing good could possibly come of that. Kravitz’s horror story could easily have become a cautionary tale in less skilled hands, but that is not the story she’s telling.
Blink Twice, which was originally titled Pussy Island, covers really horrible territory, but again, thanks to nimble and respectful direction, there’s not a gratuitous moment. What Kravitz delivers instead is a seductive, tense, satisfying thriller.
